Celtic Place-Name Explainer
See what Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Breton and Manx place names mean, how to say them, and where they are.
339 place names
from pont “bridge”, y “the”, tŷ “house” and pridd “earth”: “bridge of the earthen house”
“place of Caled’s fort”
from inis “island” and Ceithleann
“crooked mill”
“the virgin plain”, from ógh “whole, intact” and má “plain”
from Celtic words for “sea” and “settlement”
“fort of Ó Cúis”; the short form An Daingean means “the fortress”
generally derived from Latin pagensis, “provincial”
“the cave”, possibly a folk reshaping of Odhbha, a name from legend
“coastland of the Gaels”, from Old Irish airer Goídel, “border region” or “coast” of the Gaels
“estuary of the water”, from gaoth “estuary” and dobhar “water”
“end of the bridge on the Ogmore”
“Morgan’s country”, after Morgan Hen
from porth “port” and ysek “abounding in corn”
“port of the small fort”
“fort of Saint Cybi”
“Ffili’s fort”
“church of Saint Elli”
“ringfort of the gamblers”
“blue-green cairn”; the Cairngorms range takes its name from this mountain
“fort of Laoghaire”, after Lóegaire mac Néill
“new town of the height”
“house of Saint David”
“nook of ferns”
“town on the Mynwy (Monnow)”, from tref “town”
“fort of the Britons”
perhaps “Saint Finbar’s island”
“inlet”
from pennarth, “promontory”
named after Ceredig ap Cunedda, a 5th-century king
“peaks of Brycheiniog”, a medieval kingdom named after King Brychan
“church of the oak”
“strand of the River Lee”, a small river in County Kerry
“Fergus’s rock”
“church of Mantán”
“king’s port”, or possibly “port of the flat land at the foot of a hill”
“island”
from llan “church” and Collen
from tewyn “sand dune” and plustri “animal grazing area”
“harbour of Bude”; the name Bud is of uncertain origin
“confluence”, where rivers meet
perhaps from cyn- “chief, foremost” and gwy “water”
“fort”, with a second part of uncertain origin, possibly lleng “(Roman) legion”
“(among the) foreign Gaels”, a term for Gaelic-speaking Norse settlers
named after the mythological figure Lathar
“wood of Saint Comán”
“bay of Colwyn”
“harbour of the island”
Common place-name elements
Many names are built from a few common words. Pick one to see every place that uses it.
- llan · church, parish (26)
- aber · river mouth, confluence (16)
- caer · fort (9)
- cill · church (8)
- porth · port, harbour, cove (8)
- baile · town, settlement (7)
- pont · bridge (7)
- dún · fort (6)
- pen · head, top, end (6)
- áth · ford (5)
- tref · town (5)
- droichead · bridge (4)
- inis · island (4)
- ros · wood; headland (4)
- cwm · valley (4)
- tŷ · house (4)
- dùn · fort, fortress (4)
- ceann · head, headland (3)
- cúige · province (3)
- mainistir · monastery, abbey (3)
- castell · castle (3)
- coed · wood, forest, trees (3)
- din · fort, stronghold (3)
- dôl · meadow (3)
Go deeper than the map
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Meanings and glosses are adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the other sources cited on each page. Map and area data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).